The snow is accumulating all around the state of Utah, and our family is making the most of winter! This year, for the holiday season, we made reservations at the Homestead Resort in Midway, UT (only a 25 minute drive from Park City Mountain), with plans to ski and explore Park City Mountain. If you are…

Do you ever wonder if you really know yourself anymore? Or do you worry you are merely a product of what everyone expects of you? I do. A month ago I had the opportunity to take a night off, escaping to the Homestead Resort for a bit of a retreat from normal life. My husband and kids…

Country roads, take me home To the place I belong… -“Country Roads” by John Denver The work day ending early, we jump in the already loaded car and hit the road. I laugh (and cry) a bit inside when the kids whine about a 50 minute drive. We are so spoiled in Utah, with the…

We are eeking out of the bunny-hill years but honestly the most questions we receive regarding teaching kids to ski is about how and when to teach your young kids. We started all our kids when they were 2 years old, something I was comfortable with, having also been taught to ski when I was…

Mom, what is a wedge again?” My 5-year-old daughter asks. OH NO … I need to set some seriously low expectations for day 1 on skis! Ski stoke is in full swing as Utah resorts are opening across the Wasatch. But with a couple of years under my belt as a “ski mom” I’ve learned the stoke…

The crisp fall air teases my hair and the city sprawls far below, bumping both sides of the valley. Daughters run up and down the path and take turns climbing the bars. Somewhere across the park, both boys are up a tree and out of sight. It is beautiful. We’d met Jess Curren and her…

Truthfully? Summer has over stayed its welcome here in Utah. Being in the paradise of Lake Tahoe, California as the summer nights chilled down to 40 degrees and day times temps settled in the 60s and 70s didn’t help either. We settled into our front row seat and watched fall put on its display.  …

Early in our marriage, before kids were bumbling around like honey bees, I found myself reading some general living books from the 1950s era (and some recent ones too). Let’s face it, after we have kids, none of us really have time to read any of those instructional parenting books anymore, right? I don’t remember…

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. – Sir Cecil Beaton Leaves are turning golden. School started almost a month ago. This is the time of year everyone cozies in and makes themselves comfortable….

The deep pine smell fills my lungs. It is one of the things I love most about summer. That and starry nights, warm evenings with a glass of wine, my kids playing for hours in forest and on beach… without any need for interference. What do you love about summer? Maybe you have noticed, but…

Every summer we set aside school, evening sports, and many of the social obligations that fill our time and reconnect with our kids. We reconnect with each other. And with friends and family that are often lost in the busyness. At the start of every summer we brainstorm our “adventurous whims” and pencil trips on…

Wanderlust n. – is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world. Chances are if you come to visit this site, you’ve tasted a little bit of the wanderlust that plagues this family. We make it roughly one day at home before we are itching to get out the door. And while…

Happy back to school season, parents! Honestly, I have some mixed emotions about the whole affair. Maybe my inner child never really grew up because I love summer break as much as the kids do. We do a decent amount of biking, mostly around the neighborhood, often on dirt trails. And every year the risk…

Second to asking for more trail bait (ie. candy) while on adventures, are the never ending requests to “take pictures” with my phone or camera. Most the time I oblige, but inwardly I cringe at the knowledge that when I get home I’ll have 500+ photos to delete. 🙂 To be fair, they DO get…

The sweat beads on my forehead and runs down into my eyes. The sun hits hard off my shoulders while grass and insects tease around my neck. This is an unwanted sweat, not a well-earned one on some grand adventure. This grass isn’t nodding its long neck to surrounding peaks, but rather shooting tumultuously out the…

This last weekend we embarked on a mission. To hike Mount Raymond with the kids. Our trusty adventure pals joined us, bringing the kid total to 5, all between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. For most the adults, this was not the first time to have summited Raymond. [ I had done…

I love dads. And I love dad-ing. You know what I mean by dad-ing right? This is dad-ing: When you are having a girls weekend and you receive a photo with eight kids and three dads all biking across town. You are tempted to freak out. But then you relax… all the kids have survived…

This time of year is always a bit of an anomaly for me. Stuck somewhere between winter and summer we find so much beauty. Waterfalls, flowers, green mountainsides crowned still with snow. I find myself yearning to launch into our normal summer menu of backpacking and summitting mountains. And yet, it is still too rainy,…

The hot air shimmers off the pavement, blurring the orange and pink rocks off to the east of us as we travel south on I-15. I am overcome by the beauty of the landscape but also its inhabitable nature. It is summer and temperatures are in the mid-90s. But the lack of shade makes it…

  “You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. ” – C.S. Lewis I glance in the rear-view mirror, yes, my bike is still there. Is it wobbling more than normal? My paranoia runs rampant. Surely, just a few days before my first Ironman 70.3 some “game-ender” would…